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Darting: Convenience Store Clerk Keeping A Slower Pace In Fort Smith

Pam Cloud has been a feature writer for the Times Record since November 1997. Pam has won awards from the Arkansas Press Association for tourism coverage and feature writing and has received two Redbud Awards for coverage of travel opportunities in Oklahoma. A native of Stigler, Okla., Pam has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., and previously worked for at the Stigler News-Sentinel.

Twelve years ago, a young married mother came to a strange place — a land far from the place she had grown up.

Maggie Rivas left the concrete jungle of Los Angeles — the only place she had ever called home — and arrived in Fort Smith where life took a much simpler pace.

Moving where her husband’s job took the young family, which included two toddler boys at that time, Maggie felt a bit of culture shock in Arkansas.

“I used to cry,” Maggie, 36, said as there was a break while checking out customers at Sally Ann convenience store. “Here, everything’s so calm. You see so much things out there. It took me a good five years I would say to get used to it.”

In the 12 years the Rivas family has been in the Fort Smith area, they have become accustomed to the slower pace life offers here. And five months ago, life took another turn as another boy was born into the family with the now 17-year-old and 14-year-old.

“I started all over again,” Maggie said, sipping on a bottle of Welch’s apple juice.

“A pack of Marlboros,” one customer said approaching the counter.

“Shorts or 100s?” Maggie asked. “Four ninety-nine.”

After the transaction, Maggie was back discussing her family.

She shared with me the gifts she and her husband exchanged on Valentine’s Day.

“I know what he likes,” Maggie said of her husband. “If I cook and clean, he’s happy.”

Maggie got up early and cooked her husband’s favorite meal of rice, salad and fried chicken. She added some chocolate-covered strawberries and a balloon for a special touch.

When she arrived home from work, her husband had a dozen roses, chocolates and a big teddy bear waiting on her.

“First thing I said was ‘did you get ‘em yourself?” Maggie said. “My son said he had sent to him Walmart and got them for me. If you sent somebody, it doesn’t mean as much. I want him to take the initiative, you know?”

With Maggie and her husband both working, ordinary work nights consist of watching a good movie and talking. If it’s nice outside, they take the kids to the park.

“I’m really into working and my kids right now,” said Maggie. “I feel like I don’t have a life.”

Maggie sounds like over half of the area’s working parents.

She only cooks on her days off, but she’s taught the teenage boys how to prepare foods for themselves in the microwave.

“I told them you guys are old enough to throw something in the microwave,” she added, noting that she keeps the kitchen and fridge stocked with easily prepared items.

And equipping young boys to feed themselves and become independent is one of the most important lessons a mother can teach her son.

More than a decade ago, I was stepmother to a 12-year-old boy for four years.

I taught him how to prepare quick and easy foods so he could have a snack when he got in from school or fix a quick breakfast before heading out to school.

I also taught him how to do his laundry and pick up after himself. Two of my main rules were “If I find it in your pockets doing laundry, it’s mine” and “If it’s not in the hamper, it doesn’t get washed.”

My stepson is now a very responsible, dependable and successful young man. He’s told me on more than one occasion how much he appreciated those lessons he learned from me. He is now a father and may one day pass those lessons on to his son.

“Hi; $20 on …” a customer said walking into the store.

“Number?” Maggie asked about the gas pump. “One?”

“Yeah,” the customer said. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Despite enjoying raising her family in the slower pace Fort Smith offers, she longs for the day she can return to California, where many of her family still lives.

“I always tell my kids, we’re going back one day.”

I’ll be back next week and I’ll be searching the neighborhoods near Country Club and 48th Street, where I’ll be darting then.

PAM CLOUD IS A FEATURE WRITER FOR THE TIMES RECORD. E-MAIL: PCLOUD@SWTIMES.COM. FOR PHOTOS OF RIVAS, VISIT WWW.SWTIMES.COM.